Former state Sen. Sue Lowden, R-Las Vegas, filed a plan to eliminate her debt from her 2010 failed campaign for U.S. Senate with the Federal Election Commission this week, vowing to pay off half of her $500,000 debt while disputing the other half in court.

Lowden is currently running for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor but her GOP opponent, state Sen. Mark Hutchison, R-Las Vegas, said earlier this week he will not use her campaign debt as an issue.

Lowden said the plan submitted to the FEC is solid and is confident it will render her debt from the 2010 campaign as a non-issue.

“The FEC report has been filed and it is a closed issue,” Lowden said.

Lowden has hired a special lawyer from Washington D.C. to deal with her FEC filings.

“I hired an FEC specialist and he is confident that we have filed the proper forms and that it will be accepted by the FEC,” Lowden said. “I am happy to have this behind me and to now focus on the real issues of the campaign.”

Hutchison’s campaign, in releasing a statement on Lowden’s FEC filings, noted that Lowden has already donated about $100,000 to her own campaign for lieutenant while her 2010 debts went unpaid.

Hutchison’s campaign sent a statement, although it was not directly attributed to Hutchison:

“It has been over three years since Lowden incurred these debts. There have been lawsuits filed, media investigations, and Federal Election Commission inquiries, yet the debt to multiple small businesses will still not be paid in full,” Hutchison’s campaign said. “Now, based on the paperwork she filed, it seems some may wait an additional three years just to receive a partial payment. Sue has to justify writing a personal check for $100,000 to her new campaign without first settling the debts on the last one. It is hard to understand how she seriously considers the matter a non-issue.”

To that, Lowden replied:

“You can tell the political season is upon us when my opponent doesn’t want to discuss his voting record, including raising taxes and voting for Obamacare,” Lowden said. “By statute, the lieutenant governor is the chairman of tourism, an industry in which I have had 30 years of experience and success stories. My opponent has no experience in that field and his campaign is desperately trying to change the subject.”

Even if the FEC accepts Lowden’s plan, questions about her payment of bills will probably continue, said Eric Herzik, the dean of the political science department at the University of Nevada, Reno.

“This is an issue on two different fronts,” said Herzik, a registered Republican. “There are plenty of people who will say, ‘You’re running again and you still have debt from another race?’

“Particularly on the Republican side, when you are always talking about fiscal responsibility and conservatism, and you still owe more than $200,000 (according to debt settlement plan)?

“Many people will question that,” Herzik said. “She’ll get asked about it over and over, so it is an issue that doesn’t go away.”

Lowden could be questioned about it during the campaign, but her campaign debt is not an issue that will stick with voters in a GOP primary, said Chuck Muth of Las Vegas, a political activist and adviser to constitutional conservative candidates.

“I know the opposition wants to hammer her on it and the media wants to hammer her on it, but it is like campaign finance reform: If you ask 10 voters, do you support campaign finance reform, eight will say yes,” Muth said. “But if you gave them a list of 10 things to rank in importance that goes into their decision on who they vote for, campaign finance is always at the bottom on the list.

“Is it an issue that moves voters? No,” Muth said. “It is not going to hurt her with the Republican primary voters. It (campaign) is going to be a lot more substantive than that.”

Muth was also critical of Hutchison saying that he was not going to make Lowden campaign debt a campaign issue. Muth called the stance “disingenuous.”

“Every time Hutchison says he is not going to bring up the campaign debt issue, he’s bringing up the campaign debt issue,” Muth said. “It is a disingenuous way he is handling that.”

One of the people who will be paid in the debt settlement plan said it remains to be seen if Lowden’s debt will become a non-issue.

“The voters will have to make that decision,” said Reno political consultant Robert Uithoven, Lowden’s 2010 campaign manager.

In the debt-settlement agreement, Lowden promises to pay Uithoven $44,000 – with payments of $1,000 for 44 consecutive months.

Uithoven, however, won’t see a dime until the plan is approved by the FEC and that worries him.

“The thing that concerns me is that most things that are involved with a federal agency move at a snail’s pace,” Uithoven said. “So the time-line of when this gets approved, I don’t know. I just hope it is approved quickly for my own reasons.”

If the debt settlement plan is not approved quickly, the issue could bleed into March, when candidates officially file to run for office, or through the primary campaign season, which ends with the primary election in June.

“If the FEC accepts this, the problem is that she was not allowed to negotiate these deals to the vendors she owes to pay them off,” Muth said. “She’s got to get permission from the government to do it. And she has to do it in a way that satisfies them.”

Sue filed paperwork with the FEC that showed she planned on not paying two vendors at all, and paying off several others for roughly .45 cents on the dollar. Some of these payments will be small amounts and will take over 4 years to pay off! Why is Sue giving 100K to her campaign but allowing these small businesses to suffer for the next few years?

About this blog

Ray Hagar is the political reporter for the Reno Gazette-Journal and a fifth-generation Nevadan. Hagar is also a co-host for the Nevada Newsmakers statewide television program. He is the co-author of "Johnson-Jeffries: Dateline Reno," a book about the 1910 "Fight of the Century" in Reno that pitted black world champion Jack Johnson against the "Great White Hope," Jim Jeffries